I HAVE BEEN A BUSY BOY. After a long slogging winter, I’ve finally shaken off the homebound blues and taken to my shoes.

When I look down at my phone calendar, the little gray dots scattered across dates that signify a TO DO of some sort have finally started to appear on the weekends.

For too long the weekday dots read “Faculty meeting” or “Testing” or “Touro tonight” or “Collect essays” or “Colonoscopy” or “Water the onions.”

Lately my little gray dots have had new things to say, like “Eldorado reservations,” “Gino arrives for two months,” “Tahoe reservations,” “Taj Mahal tickets,” “First day of fishing,” “Cinco de yesterday Party,” “Bay to Breakers,” and “Pin-a-go-go.” My calendar is polka-dotted with fun.

I’m sitting in the middle of these events looking forward and backward, pondering what’s worth sharing. I’ll try to summarize.

Susan and I spent most of holiday week at the Reno Eldorado because it’s cheaper and easier than staying home. That might be an overstatement, but I dig those $35 rooms, $5 buffets, and the Roxy martini happy hour. Susan and I eat a three-hour breakfast each morning and read newspapers until noon. At home we get up and do chores and over shop at the grocery store. Evening recreation at home is the flat-screen boob tube. In Reno they’re real.

Gino flew in and stayed in Benicia while we were in Reno. He’s here until June doing remodels for five different people. His first was for us. In exchange for his ticket, he drove my truck and met us in Tahoe where we installed a new front door on the cabin. We stayed for the weekend and saw Taj Mahal at Harrah’s.

I think a lot of folks in the audience that Easter weekend bought show tickets simply because they were in town and wanted to do something, or perhaps the tickets came in a room package. Either way, they didn’t know Taj. They came expecting a big casino performance, a big band, singing and dancing, showcase stuff. What they got was Taj at 72 sitting alone on a stool singing the blues. Within 30 minutes seats all around us had opened up as silver foxes and the excessively young opted to cut out early for the casino floor, where the real action was. More room for the rest of us.

I first saw Taj in 1980 in Berkeley. I was first in line and he peeked out the door. He saw me standing alone and invited me in well before the show started. He patted me on the back and gave me a front-center seat while he rehearsed. I recall he was playing a didgeridoo and a kolimba.

Then we went fishing. We attended the 64th annual Openers, an event involving about 40 guys who go into the woods outside of Markleeville to fish and cuss and spit around white-man fires. What is a white-man fire? Any fire that tries to burn a dozen or more pieces of wood at the same time and was started with white gas.

Bud Donaldson, a retired Benicia teacher who works with Gino, came with his license and tackle box. As usual, Gino didn’t fish. He sat in the sun, between snow storms. When the sun and temperature dropped, he sat by the fire. That was his whole weekend. Ours involved hours of driving, climbing, standing, baiting, untangling, fishing, splashing, and a sunburn. Gino, Bud and I all caught the same amount of fish.

I came with only a license. I forgot my tackle in the garage. Chad loaned me a pole. Bud gave me three hooks, six sinkers and a jar of orange Power Bait. The other guys with real bait and tackle and willingness came home with stringers of trout. The camp probably caught about 100 fish, the winner of the pool being 21 ¾ inches. Everybody caught fish but us. That didn’t deeply bother us because everyone ate trout, including us.

Currently, as I type, we are planning our annual Cinco de Mayo party that will be over as of yesterday. I bet it went well.

We started this party nine years ago to introduce Gino to my Benicia friends and show off his talents. First he did an awesome backyard tile job on my cement stairs, then we threw a party.

At this moment, while I’m typing, Gino is over the bridge working for Sarah Woo, a former Benicia teacher whom he met during that first party. She’s got him and Bud building her a bathroom.

Each year Gino flies to California to visit and cook for the party, and then do a half dozen remodels. This year his cousin, and our dear, dear friend, Joe Capone of Sonoma, a Philadelphia native, died too young at 59 of the evil cancer monster, making the trip even more special for Gino. Joe is the guy who introduced Gino, me, Chad, everybody to the men of the fishing club. They were Joe’s pals from his time in Sacramento. If not for Joe, we wouldn’t be telling these fishing stories.

The guys did a great tribute to Joe. We laid out his tackle box on a table in our circle. We all sang a song together, 40 guys around a fire, each with a shot of Crown Royal. We sang “Terry’s Song” by Bruce Springsteen. My voice cracked on each refrain.

At the end everyone got a small envelope with “Joe” written on it. Inside were his ashes. His widow, Jan, had given Joe to us.

Steve Gibbs teaches at Benicia High School and has written a column for The Herald since 1985.